Cooke jumps to it and wins bobsleigh gold

Published on Sunday 22 February 2009 22:24

SHE was already an elite athlete who had won medals and broken Scottish records in the long jump and pole vault – but Gillian Cooke has reached the pinnacle of her sporting career in a very different discipline.

Just five months after taking up bobsleigh, the 26-year-old and her partner Nicola Minichiello became the first British pair to win gold in the sport since 1965. It adds a fourth notch to her sporting belt, which already boasts the triple jump, long jump and pole vault.

She took up the bobsleigh last autumn while planning to continue in athletics in summer competitions. Now her sights are set on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

On Saturday, at the Women's Bobsleigh World Championship in Lake Placid, New York state, the two became the first British pair to win gold since Anthony Nash and Robin Dixon at St Moritz in Switzerland in 1965. The Britons set the fastest times in the third and fourth heats to post an overall winning time of three minutes, 48.22 seconds.

Cooke, a former pupil of George Watson's College, the same school as Olympic champion Chris Hoy, said: "It's absolutely fantastic. The whole team is absolutely buzzing. When I came on board back in October, I was hoping we could do well. But I would never have imagined we'd be standing on top of that podium. It's a bit unreal.

"There's a long way to go until Vancouver. But hopefully we can be even stronger then.

"I'll need to get some conditioning in for next winter, because I was looking to peak for the summer athletics season rather than this. So there'll be a change to the way I train. Rather than competing all year round, I might stop athletics earlier because my focus is now on this."

Cooke's victory is even more remarkable because she only took up the sport after a sore foot forced her to consider other options last summer. A message on Facebook, the social networking website, from the British Bobsleigh Association enticed her to try the sport.

A year ago, Cooke set a national indoor record in the long jump, before sustaining an injury prior to the outdoor sessions. This weekend she helped throttle the bobsleigh down a 1,455m track, navigate 20 curves and survive G forces of 5.1 at a maximum speed of 81mph.

Anne Scott, a friend and coach with husband John at Edinburgh Athletics Club, said: "Gillian is quite a unique sportswoman. Had she not hurt her foot last year, maybe she would not have tried bobsleigh. But she took to it like a duck to water.

Early in her career, Cooke was placed fourth in the triple jump at the Commonwealth Youth Games, and set a Scottish Junior pole vault record in 2001. In 2002, she set three Scottish pole vault records in two months, culminating in selection for the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

But in 2003, she added the long jump to her sports and took the silver medal at the UK championships, gaining selection for the GB team in both pole vault and long jump. A year later she decided to focus on the long jump, and competed in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, where she made the final. Last year she broke the Scottish indoor record with a jump of 6m 43cm.

Leslie Roy, a former team manager for Cooke at Scotland's national athletics squad, said she was delighted with the victory and it showed the potential for Scots to excel across a number of sports. She said: "It's fantastic for her, and for other people, to see that if you are versatile you can move from one sport to another with transferable skills.

"The basis of athletics training is the basis for training for most sports: the speed and strength of running down the track and take off. There have been a number of athletes who have moved from athletics to bobsleigh."

BACKGROUND

GILLIAN Cooke's success in the bobsleigh after starting in athletics is not the first gold medal victory in sporting diversification.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, track cyclist Rebecca Romero became the first British woman to be presented with Olympic medals in two separate sports, having won gold in the women's 3000m individual pursuit at the Beijing Olympics.

Four years earlier she won rowing silver in Athens in the women's quadruple sculls.

Only one British sportsman has achieved the feat – Paulo Radmilovic in 1908, 1912 and 1920, though the Cardiff-born swimmer and water polo player's accomplishments were all in the pool.